Cardinals release veteran Wigginton

Despite having signed Ty Wiggington to a two-year $5 million deal in the offseason, the Cardinals cut ties with the little used player late Tuesday morning.

JASON FARMERjason.farmer@courierpost.com@Hcp_jasonfarmer

Despite having signed Ty Wiggington to a two-year $5 million deal in the offseason, the Cardinals cut ties with the little used player late Tuesday morning.

Wiggington had the fewest starts (seven) of any player that was on the opening day roster and was batting a dismal .158 for the season.

With other teams in past years, Wiggington had been a productive player. Four times Wiggington had hit 20-plus homers in a season. Most recently he accomplished the feat in 2010. However, he just never got on track with St. Louis this season.

But what is more surprising is Wiggington's lack of power this year. Wiggington has not hit a home run all season and has only two doubles. In the 47 games he played in, Wiggington has zero homers and just three runs batted in.

Before this year, Wiggington's previous low was 6 homers and 18 RBIs in his rookie season (2002) with the New York Mets. Of course, he had 116 at bats that season as compared to just 57 this year.

Even last year Wiggington still finished with 11 home runs and 43 RBIs. Over his 12-year career, Wiggington has hit 169 homers and driven in 594 runs.

With his release, the Cardinals have called up catcher Rob Johnson from AAA Memphis where he was batting .236 with 7 home runs and 32 RBIs in 59 games. Johnson, a former 4th round draft pick (2004) of the Seattle Mariners, owns a career batting mark of .201 with 8 HR's and 62 RBIs in 245 games with Seattle (2007-10), San Diego (2011) and the New York Mets (2012). He batted .250 in 17 games for the Mets last season and caught the Major League debut (July 26) of Matt Harvey when he fanned 11 batters in 5.1 innings.With regular catcher Yadier Molina nursing an injury, the addition of Johnson gives the Cardinals a second catcher to backup Tony Cruz.